In 2000, I launched a twenty-year goal to build significant model churches. Since then, we have built seven strong, self-supporting model churches in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. These churches serve their regions as working examples with solid government, innovative vision, and sustainable growth. The model churches are leadership centers where the work in the outlying areas is directed and funded with resources from within the model. Out of these seven model churches, we have built a multitude of about sixty-five thousand adult believers in South Asia.

In 2018, I began building an app that I envisioned would become a digital distribution platform for leadership development, pastor training, and church planting. I wanted to take advantage of the 5g cellular system India is building. I faced many setbacks in this venture, from business betrayals to rising Hindu opposition to the COVID crisis, but the Lord has helped me prevail. I have developed a sophisticated media delivery system incorporated into an intuitive app called Rohi. It features encrypted content, test questions, notes, student progress and test results data, and messaging features.

When we first launched Rohi, I produced video content translated into Hindi from English taught by American pastors. It was good but not great. And there was some risk of Indian government scrutiny because of the foreign faces. I tried to make it more relevant by producing content with Indian pastors who spoke in English, which we translated into Hindi. That eliminated the foreign faces, and the content was good for city pastors but not great for the village pastors I want to reach. And we still had that awkward translation issue.

In 2021 I began producing content straight into Marathi, an Indian language spoken in western India by more than eighty-five million people. One of my most fruitful leaders, who ministers in both Hindi and Marathi, is partnering with me to produce content directly in the Marathi language. He did the teaching and did a terrific job on the pilot session. Since he teaches in Marathi, it is clearer and more relevant to village leaders. He has become the model for the other languages I’m developing. We added two languages in 2023 and will be adding three more in 2024.

I have found the secret sauce! The Marathi teaching has generated enormous interest among my leaders who speak that language. Many of them struggle to understand Hindi clearly. We produced a pilot program in Mumbai, and in March, I began financing a small video production studio in Aurangabad. From Aurangabad, we will produce and distribute church planting and leadership training material for Marathi speakers.

The three production centers we’ve launched with my top leaders are now churning out content. From these centers, my leaders will produce discipleship, leadership, Bible courses, and church-planting content that will help expand their regional influence. In the same way I helped them build their congregations, I will help them build their apostolic influence. These media centers cost us $20,000 to set up. They are self-sustaining through my leaders’ congregation contributions and local media production as a small business.

It takes about $20,000 to set up a media center. I’m placing them with leaders I have worked with and mentored over the past 20 years. These are men of proven character, leadership, and influence. We are recruiting other like-minded leaders in each language and setting up each studio to be self-supporting.

$12,000 Equipment

$3,000 First Course Pilot Production

$5,000 First-year operational costs

$20,000 Total

Marathi - $20,000 Funded!

Pakistani Urdu - $20,000 Funded!

Sri Lankan Sinhala - $20,000 Funded!

Final APP & Website $20,000 Funded!

Nepali - $20,000

Hindi - $20,000

Kannada - $20,000

Telegu - $20,000

Total - $60,000 Raised of $160,000 needed

Monthly - I spend an additional $2,000 per month for India-based staff and tech development.